Introduction

The Forge Valley Railway was a 16¼ mile single track branch line, built by the North Eastern Railway to serve the villages between Pickering and Scarborough. Opened on 1st May 1882, it was one of the last railways in North Yorkshire to be built and also one of the first to close on 3rd June 1950.

The railway never actually passed through the “Forge Valley”. There were early proposals to build a railway from Scalby to Hackness, then south through the Forge Valley to West Ayton, but these never came to anything. Instead, it was one of the stations on the line which was built at West Ayton that inherited the name “Forge Valley”.

The line ran mainly through agricultural farmland, with the hills of the North York Moors climbing away to the north and the flats of the Vale of Pickering to the south.